


On the Outside

by QuentinCrisp



Series: A Peaceful Life--Rogue One Drabbles [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anxiety, Bodhi Rook Needs a Hug, Gen, Hoth, Insecurity, M/M, Nightmares, Tauntauns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 16:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11672583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuentinCrisp/pseuds/QuentinCrisp
Summary: Bodhi wanders Echo Base when he can't sleep at night. When he runs into Chirrut one night, the Guardian takes him to meet some unexpected characters as a way to talk about Bodhi's insecurities.





	On the Outside

Word around Echo Base had it that tauntauns were the _worst_.

Smelly, skittish, noisy things with foul pens and an endless appetite for a very specific type of lichen. But no amount of modifications could make the airspeeders reliably tolerate Hoth’s temperatures, so the Rebellion had to fall back on tauntauns. The nasty, oily beasts.

Bodhi was glad that he hadn’t needed to deal with them, outside of one horrible stint on the rotating stall-mucking schedule. Mechanical things were much more comforting, he found. He could anticipate a ship’s quirks, could learn to work with faulty wiring, but organics of any sort had always made him a bit nervous.

He was, therefore, surprised and more than a little displeased when Chirrut took his hand and announced, “You need to see the tauntauns.”

Bodhi sighed in exasperation. “I don’t want to see the—look, I can keep walking around on my own. I’m feeling better anyway. Should be able to get back to sleep soon,” he lied. He would be up the rest of the night, and he and Chirrut both knew it.

“Bodhi, you are anxious enough that you chose to get out of your warm bed in the dead of night and pace around a glorified ice cave,” Chirrut insisted.

Bodhi wrapped his fluffy blanket tighter around his shoulders and shuffled uncomfortably for a moment. He shook his head in resignation. “Let’s go find the tauntauns.”

They walked in silence through the passageways, nodding politely to the few beings they met along the way. Bodhi liked the feel of the base at night, when most of the members of diurnal species were asleep and he could hear his thoughts a little more clearly. He would have preferred a decent night’s sleep, of course, but walking out his jitters was a surprisingly pleasant alternative, in its way.

They smelled the animals before they even rounded the corner into the last hallway. Bodhi muttered a curse under his breath as the miasma washed over them, but Chirrut maintained his serene expression as they moved forward.

“You know there’s a reason they keep these things housed so far from the rest of the base,” Bodhi deadpanned while trying desperately to wrap his blanket into a barrier over his nose. Chirrut just hummed and greeted the two overnight tauntaun wranglers as they entered the cavernous stables. Bodhi followed as Chirrut sauntered toward a pen in the back and solemnly leaned against the fencing.

The pair watched in silence as the snow lizards warily loped away from them at first, huddling in a far corner of their enclosure. Bodhi looked expectantly at Chirrut, who just cocked his head and listened to the constant popping sounds the creatures produced. After a few moments, a single tauntaun tentatively stepped toward them and sniffed with all four nostrils. It bounded over and nuzzled Chirrut’s outstretched hand.

Bodhi raised an eyebrow. “They like you,” he observed.

“I like them, too,” Chirrut responded. “Except for the eldest female in that pen.” He gestured over their right shoulders. “She’s a self-centered asshole.”

Bodhi couldn’t help but chuckle. A second animal approached and sniffed at him, and he disentangled a hand from his blanket cocoon to hold it in front of the creature’s muzzle. It licked his palm and pressed its nose into his hand. “They’re softer than I thought they’d be,” he wondered aloud, half to himself. “Chirrut, why are we here in the middle of the night?”

Chirrut guffawed, startling a few of the tauntauns who had begun to wander close to where they stood. “Let’s learn about tauntauns.”

“Pardon?”

“I want you to think about them. What do you know about tauntauns? What do they say about them, here on base?”

Bodhi thought for a moment. “They’re smelly. Absolutely wretched smell. They’re…ornery. They buck. Have a temper. But they’re skittish, too. But they’re dangerous when they’re frightened. They fiercely protect their young and their elders. When they’re scared is when they’re the most vicious.”

The monk nodded encouragement. “Go on.”

“Erm…they’re loud? Not _loud_ , but they never stop this popping-chattering thing they’re doing. And they can’t stay still. They’re quite useful, if unpopular. They don’t do well alone. They need to be in groups, need to huddle.” Bodhi thought for a moment. “They’re fragile alone, but tough in a group. They can fight off wampas together, but they can’t stand the cold alone at night.” Chirrut scratched behind his tauntaun friend’s horns and let the recurring waves of _popperty-poppers_ sounds rise and fall in the background for a while.

“Shit, Chirrut, is this a metaphor?” Chirrut giggled at Bodhi’s sudden realization. “Did you bring me here to compare me to a kriffing tauntaun?”

“Why do you say that, little brother?”

Bodhi huffed and pouted. “You cryptic banthafucker.”

Chirrut turned toward him, expression grave. “Bodhi, I sense your pain. You have been alone for so long. So many long haul jobs, so many nights away from your family, so many rain festivals missed while you were offworld. So many regrets shoved to the back of your mind just for your own survival. You have suffered, and endured, alone. And you think you deserve it.” Bodhi stood deathly still. “But you are strong, even when you do not feel it. You find your strength with others. And it has been a long time, but you have others to herd with now. We are social creatures, humans. Like tauntauns. And, like the tauntauns, you need others of your kind. There is no shame in needing to huddle through the cold, even if you think you are weak for it.”

Bodhi chewed his lip and blinked away tears of embarrassment. He swallowed thickly and spoke only when he could be sure his voice would be steady. “I don’t want to be a burden,” he whispered and hung his head. “I need to stand on my own.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. My husband has been saying that for years, but you’ve seen him,” Chirrut drew a miniscule smile from the pilot. “We are here to help you, little brother. You are welcome to walk the halls alone at night, but know that you can wake us up at any time.”

“I just don’t want to be too…much. There’s so much wrong with me. And I know I can be intense. Es—especially with Cassian. We’re just…new, right? I can’t be too clingy. Don’t want to scare him off. So I haven’t told him that I still can’t sleep.”

Chirrut patted his hand. “It is a balancing act. But do think about it, Bodhi. Cassian, too, needs help sometimes; we all do. And you have a whole group of people who love you. You are allowed to make mistakes. You are fierce and thoughtful and tougher than you know. You brought us hope. If a few hours sitting up with you will help you feel more at ease, then that is a task I will gladly take on.” He drew Bodhi into a tight hug. “Let’s see about getting away from this smell, eh?”

Bodhi laughed and noticed that his chest felt a bit lighter. “Wait, this wasn’t a whole setup just to tell me that I stink, was it?”

Their laughs rang out over the _pop-pop-poppity-pop_ s of the tauntaun herds, and they made their way back to the barracks through the labyrinthine ice tunnels of Echo Base.


End file.
